Nigeria’s debt increases to N24.95tn in 2 years

Nigeria’s total public debt now stands at N24.95tn, the Debt Management Office has said.

Statistics obtained from the DMO on Wednesday showed that the country’s total debt stood at N24.95tn as of March 31, rising from N19.16tn as of March 31, 2017.

This means that within a period of two years, the country’s total debt rose by N5.79tn. It also means that within a period of two years, the country’s debt profile rose by 30.22 per cent.

Out of the total debt profile, external debt accounted for N7.81tn ($25.61bn). In percentage terms, external debt accounted for 31.51 per cent of the country’s total debt portfolio.

On the other hand, total domestic debt amounted to N17.07tn. This means that the domestic debt accounted for 68.41 per cent of the total debt portfolio.

The Federal Government’s component of the domestic debt accounted for N13.11tn while the subnational governments accounted for N3.97tn.

Thus, the Federal Government accounted for 76.8 per cent of the nation’s domestic debt profile while the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory accounted for 23.2 per cent of the domestic debt portfolio.

Two years ago, the country’s external debt portfolio stood at $13.81bn, growing to $25.61bn as of March 31.

This means that within a period of two years, the country’s external debt portfolio had grown by $11.8bn. Thus, the nation grew its external loan commitment by 85.45 per cent.

The domestic debt component of the Federal Government, on the other hand, rose from N11.97tn as of March 2017 to N17.09tn.

This means that within the period, the Federal Government grew its local debt commitment by N5.12tn, thereby reflecting 42.77 per cent increase within a period of two years.

In a statement made available to our correspondent in Abuja on Wednesday, the DMO said that the debt profile of N24.95tn only grew marginally by 2.3 per cent when compared to the figure of N24.35tn as of December 31, 2018.

It explained that the increase of N560.01bn in the total public debt in the first quarter of the year was accounted for largely by domestic debt, which grew by N458.36bn.

Increases were recorded in the domestic debt stock of the Federal Government, states and the FCT. External Debt also increased by N101.65bn in the first quarter, it added.

In relation to the Debt Management Strategy, the ratio of domestic to external debt stood at 68.49 per cent to 31.51 per cent as of the end of March.

The total public debt to GDP ratio was 19.03 per cent, which is within the 25 per cent debt limit imposed by the government, the DMO added.

The domestic debt data for the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory stood at N3.972tn as of the end of March.

Lagos had the highest figure of N542.231bn, followed by Rivers and Delta with N225.592bn and N223.442bn, respectively.